London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Sep 18, 2025

Why female genital mutilation persists in Singapore

Why female genital mutilation persists in Singapore

Female genital mutilation is considered a violation of human rights by the UN, and is illegal in many countries. The procedure still happens in Singapore, where an estimated 60 per cent of Malay women have been cut.


Female genital mutilation continues in Singapore. It is regarded as a necessary religious rite by some and a violation of human rights by others.

Rizman used to regard female genital mutilation as something that simply “had to be done”. His sister was cut when she was a child, and even though he didn’t see it he remembers his parents talking about it and taking her to a clinic for the procedure.

When his daughter was born, his parents and in-laws asked him and his wife when they would send her for sunat – a general Malay term for female genital mutilation, sometimes called female circumcision.

“We figured that it’s something that’s required as part of the religion, and when she was two or three months old, we got it done,” explains Rizman, a 34-year-old media professional who prefers not to use his real name.

Many Singaporean Muslims believe the procedure is a religious necessity. In Islam, it is mandatory for males to be circumcised and there is still a widespread belief in the city state’s Muslim community that girls have to be cut.


A girl walks in front of a mosque in Singapore. Many Singaporean Muslims believe female genital mutilation is necessary.


Rizman’s daughter was cut in a clinic in 2014 by a doctor who was a Muslim woman. The little girl was laid on the bed, and the doctor said it would be done very quickly and “only a little was to be removed”.

He says everything was done hygienically and seemed professional. The doctor said prayers before the procedure, which put Rizman’s mind at rest over the religious aspect.

Over time, he became curious and wanted to know more about sunat and why it is performed. He is not a particularly religious person, he says, but he knows Islam “is a religion that has a very valid reason for all things regarded as dos and don’ts”.

But as he researched more deeply he became increasingly uneasy, because there were no definite answers. Some said the mutilation was a must, while some said it was not strictly necessary and a cultural practice rather than a religious one.

He came to believe mutilation was not a strict requirement and he had put his daughter through a procedure that was unnecessary and perhaps “cruel”, he says.


Some believe female genital mutilation arrived in Southeast Asia as part of tradition with the Shafi’i school of Islam.


“I read somewhere there were claims that the part that was removed was cut off to desensitise the clitoris,” he says. “This is so that the child does not grow up to be promiscuous and highly sexually driven.”

That was disturbing for him, he says, because his daughter’s sexual fate was sealed and she was judged to be potentially promiscuous when she was just a baby.

To many Western health organisations, any procedure that involves the laceration or cutting of the female genitals is defined as “mutilation”. Some describe it as FGC, female genital cutting, or FGM, female genital mutilation.

The practice involves the injury or partial or total removal of the external female genital organs for non-medical reasons, and it is considered by the United Nations to be a violation of girls’ and women’s rights. It is illegal in many parts of the world, and it can cause long-term problems with sex, childbirth and mental health.

There are four different types of female genital mutilation. Types I and IV are the most common in Southeast Asia. Type I is the partial or total removal of the clitoris or clitoral hood, and Type IV is the pricking, piercing or scraping of the genitalia.

It is unclear when the practice first began in Singapore. A few researchers have theorised that mutilation reached Southeast Asia as part of Islamic tradition linked to the Shafi’i school of Islam, but the spread is still not fully understood.


Miranda Dobson is senior communications manager at the Orchid Project.


Female Malay Muslims, who make up about seven per cent of the population (420,000 people), are most at risk in Singapore. It is estimated about 60 per cent of Malay women have already been cut, according to an unpublished survey conducted by Unicef in 2016. Communities female genital mutilation because it is hidden; a taboo subject that cannot be broached.

Miranda Dobson, senior communications manager at the Orchid Project, a British charity that works to end female genital mutilation, says some people assume the practice happens “over there”, somewhere far away, only in rural settings, only in African countries, or only in places with poverty and low levels of education. Not in a modern city state like Singapore.

Female genital mutilation is a global issue that affects girls, women and their communities across Africa, Asia, the Middle East and within the Muslim global diaspora, she says. The procedure has affected women of different levels of education, of different ethnicity, class and geography.

Many local supporters of genital mutilation regard the procedure in Singapore as a “small cut” that causes no harm to the female child. But Dobson says that while some may not experience extreme health consequences, the procedure always has risks. “It can often lead to physical and psychological impacts, such as severe blood loss, scarring, infections, post-traumatic stress disorder and depression,” she says.

There is no law against female genital mutilation in Singapore. Campaigners and organisations actively discussing FGC have met with silence from the government, Dobson says. In 2013, Singapore’s Islamic Religious Council, the Majlis Ugama Islam Singapura (MUIS), released a statement saying that both male and female cutting were compulsory, although all mention of the practice has been removed from the council’s website.

One Singaporean who speaks openly about her story, Saza Faradilla, only found out as an adult that she had been cut as a child.


Saza Faradilla found out as an adult that she had been cut as a child.


In 2016, on her cousin’s second birthday, one of her relatives approached Faradilla and told her the little girl had been cut the previous week.

“When I showed my outrage, my relative added you were cut too,” Faradilla says. “My jaw dropped. I had never known about this cutting before, and I was completely unaware that it was performed on me.”

She questioned her parents, who insisted it was mandatory and they had it done for her own good. She hadn’t known little girls were cut with the consent of their parents. Her lack of understanding, followed by her outrage, moved her to spend much of her time in college developing her thesis on female genital mutilation in Singapore and campaigning against the procedure.


Many Malay Muslim women in Singapore were cut as children or newborns.


Faradilla now organises campaigns agitating against FGC to raise awareness about the harm is causes as well as to provide survivors and allies with tools to stop it happening.

A fellow campaigner, Sya Taha, founded the Islamic group Crit Talk, which organises workshops to encourage Muslims to speak freely about female genital mutilation. The workshops provide critical perspectives and more information to current and prospective parents to help them make an informed decision about the procedure.

“Happily, so far all of our participants declared at the end of our workshop that they would not do it on their children,” Taha says, adding that there is a website with information and forums featuring anonymous discussion of the practice.

Although Rizman has managed to convince his sister to not get his niece cut, he has yet to openly discuss the practice with others in the Muslim community.

“Any sort of discussion on this may result in my family being ostracised, singled out, and be seen as an example of a ‘bad influence’ in the community”, he says.

He knows for sure that if he has another daughter, he doesn’t want her to be cut. Yet he doesn’t believe it should be forbidden. Since one of the reasons for practice is religious, he believes it should be a personal choice for the parents. But he does hope for a firm, public stance from the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore.

“They should say if this cut is to be done or not,” he says. “No two ways about it. I hope the latter, because I don’t think daughters should have this done to them when they’re just newborns.”

Religious authorities fear that if female genital mutilation became no longer easily available in Singapore it would be performed “underground”, where conditions are far less hygienic and the procedure can be more extreme.

Activist Faradilla, though, doesn’t believe it. “If the relevant authorities can counter the health, religious and female promiscuity reasons given for FGC,” she says, “this will be regarded as unnecessary and will no longer be practised.”

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Macron and his wife to provide 'scientific photographic evidence' that she is a real woman
US Tech Giants Pledge Billions to UK AI Infrastructure Following Starmer's Call
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
DeepMind and OpenAI Achieve Gold at ‘Coding Olympics’ in AI Milestone
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
Effective and Impressive Generation Z Protest: Images from the Riots in Nepal
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Trump: Cancel quarterly company reports and settle for reporting once every six months
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
US Launches New Pilot Program to Accelerate eVTOL Air Taxi Deployment
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
Kash Patel erupts at ‘buffoon’ Sen. Adam Schiff over Russiagate: ‘You are the biggest fraud’
Homeland Security says Emmy speech ‘fanning the flames of hatred’ after Einbinder’s ‘F— ICE’ remark
Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Assassin Tyler Robinson Faces Death Penalty as Charges Formally Announced
Actor, director, environmentalist Robert Redford dies at 89
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
JD Vance Says There Is “No Unity” with Those Who Celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Killing, and he is right!
Trump sues the 'New York Times' for an astronomical sum of 15 billion dollars
Florida Hospital Welcomes Its Largest-Ever Baby: Annan, Nearly Fourteen Pounds at Birth
U.S. and Britain Poised to Finalize Over $10 Billion in High-Tech, Nuclear and Defense Deals During Trump State Visit
China Finds Nvidia Violated Antitrust Laws in Mellanox Deal, Deepens Trade Tensions with US
US Air Force Begins Modifications on Qatar-Donated Jet Amid Plans to Use It as Air Force One
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
Elon Musk Retakes Lead as World’s Richest After Brief Ellison Surge
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
London Daily Podcast: London Massive Pro Democracy Rally, Musk Support, UK Economic Data and Premier League Results Mark Eventful Weekend
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Musk calls for new UK government at huge pro-democracy rally in London, but Britons have been brainwashed to obey instead of fighting for their human rights
Elon Musk responds to post calling for the murder of Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk: 'Either we fight back or they will kill us'
Czech Republic signs €1.34 billion contract for Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks with delivery from 2028
USA: Office Depot Employees Refused to Print Poster in Memory of Charlie Kirk – and Were Fired
Proposed U.S. Bill Would Allow Civil Suits Against Judges Who Release Repeat Violent Offenders
Penske Media Sues Google Over “AI Overviews,” Claiming It Uses Journalism Without Consent and Destroys Traffic
Indian Student Engineers Propose “Project REBIRTH” to Protect Aircraft from Crashes Using AI, Airbags and Smart Materials
French Debt Downgrade Piles Pressure on Macron’s New Prime Minister
US and UK Near Tech, Nuclear and Whisky Deals Ahead of Trump Trip
One in Three Europeans Now Uses TikTok, According to the Chinese Tech Giant
Could AI Nursing Robots Help Healthcare Staffing Shortages?
NATO Deploys ‘Eastern Sentry’ After Russian Drones Violate Polish Airspace
Anesthesiologist Left Operation Mid-Surgery to Have Sex with Nurse
×